Fine.
Let him come.
Let all of them come.
I’m done being the last person informed about my own life.
I have just taken my coffee into the sitting room when the notification from the gate cuts through the quiet.
My whole body reacts before my mind fully catches up, and I hate that.
I stop mid-step with the mug warm in my hand and feel the irritation I have been trying to tamp down all morning come sliding right back up my spine.
It is almost physical, the way it returns. A hot, familiar crawl of resentment that tightens my shoulders and sharpens every thought in my head.
Of course.
Of course it would be now, just as I'm starting to relax.
Across the room, the monitor mounted on the wall clicks on automatically. The dark screen flares to life and fills with the live feed from the front gate. The angle is wide enough to show the wrought iron, the stone pillars, the camera mounted above the keypad, and the vehicle sitting just outside.
A black SUV. Large. Expensive without being flashy. The kind of car meant to project quiet competence and enough force to back it up if necessary.
I stand there and stare at it for a second over the rim of my coffee cup.
This must be him.
The camera doesn’t give me much through the windshield. Just glare, shadow, and the vague impression of a man behind the wheel. Broad shoulders. Dark suit. Stillness. Not fidgeting. Not leaning forward like he is impatient. Just waiting.
I can’t see his face.
That somehow irritates me more.
I lower the mug slowly and pick up my phone, keeping my eyes on the screen.
Typically, if there were a threat against the family, my house would already have extra men on the grounds. More movementaround the perimeter. Someone stationed close enough to intervene if something went wrong.
That is how it usually works. More bodies. More eyes. More changes that make it clear a decision has been made somewhere above my head.
But because they do not know who the rat is, because apparently trust is now in such short supply that even the men who have been with us for years are being looked at sideways, that is not how this has gone.
Instead, Antonio came by himself two nights ago with a case of equipment and spent nearly three hours resetting all of my digital security systems.
More coverage. More encrypted access points. More redundancies built into the cameras and alarm feeds.
He upgraded the software, changed protocols, adjusted remote access, and added new failovers in case something got compromised. He said very little while he did it, which is usually how Antonio is when he is focused.
But afterward, the regular Antonio came out. The charmer, the joker. He made a point of leaning against the kitchen island like he always does, making too much noise getting a glass of water, talking about some ridiculous poker game he had almost lost the weekend before.
I knew what he was doing.
He was trying to soften the edges.
Because he knows me. He knows I do not like being handled. He knows I do not like being managed. And he knows, better than anyone else, that I would have a problem with what he was actually here to do.
Because he already knew. He already knew what Papà was going to tell me yesterday. He was trying to soften me up. Instead of just telling me what was going on and what was going to happen, he buttered me up.
It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it.
